CPS plan includes money for Obama school, annexes to relieve crowding

Chicago Public Schools today released a proposed $423-million capital plan that nearly triples what the district proposed this time last year in spending to upgrade its schools, including building the new Barack Obama College Prep and an annex for the ove

Chicago Public Schools today released a proposed $423-million capital plan that nearly triples what the district proposed this time last year in spending to upgrade its schools, including building the new Barack Obama College Prep and an annex for the ove

Noreen S. Ahmed-UllahTribune reporter

Chicago Public Schools today released a proposed $423-million capital plan that is nearly triple what the district proposed this time last year in spending to upgrade its schools. This year’s projects include building the new Barack Obama College Prep and annexes for four overcrowded schools.

The financially strapped district — with a $1 billion projected deficit next year — will pay for much of the work in the 2014-15 school year by issuing up to $260 million in bonds, CPS officials said. Another $134 million will come from “outside funding and other revenue sources.”

Initially, the capital budget for 2013-14 was $162 million. CPS later added $145 million in projects before the full budget was approved.

District officials said while the capital budget has increased from last year, the amount that the district is funding is the second lowest over the past six years.

Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett said she identified three schools for annexes because of the crowding in those schools: Arthur E. Canty Elementary School, Minnie Mars Jamieson Elementary School and Richard Edwards Elementary School.

A fourth school, Wildwood World Magnet Elementary School, will also get a new annex, but paid for largely with state funds.

Edwards, which is 69 percent over capacity, has children meeting in classes in the basement and in the attic and has an insufficient number of toilets in the school, Byrd-Bennett said. At Canty, which is 50 percent over capacity, classes are meeting in mobile buildings, storage units and leased spaces with children eating their lunch on their laps in an auditorium, she added. Jamieson is 30 percent over capacity.

“It’s not that we are foolishly investing in a capital plan when I’ve got an operational deficit — those are two separate streaming funds,” Byrd-Bennett said during a briefing Friday. “We have to make these investments. These are, for me, emergencies, and for the children and the families that attend those schools, this is an imperative.”

District administrators said they will tap into outside funding for some projects, including federal money for noise abatement at Ebinger Elementary School and tax increment financing revenue for Barack Obama College Prep. For 2013-14, outside funding helped pay for $120 million of the capital projects.

Proposed projects for next year include $22 million in modernization work at another selective enrollment high school, Lane Tech. About $7 million will be used for three new computer labs at Dunne Technology Academy, a grammar school on the Far South Side.

Proposed projects for next year also include a $20 million investment to provide air conditioning to 57 schools that currently lack it. CPS has a five year plan to install air conditioning in all classrooms.

The school board must approve the capital plan before it can be implemented.